


Reversal of Fortunes

by SvengoolieCat



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Agent!Q, BAMFs, Bond!whump, Canon Typical Violence, Friends to Lovers, Kidnapping, M/M, Q still has cats, Rescue, Role Reversal, Skyfall AU, Slow Burn, Snark, Swearing, quartermaster!Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-08
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-08-29 19:57:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8503342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SvengoolieCat/pseuds/SvengoolieCat
Summary: In which Q is the lethal, highly trained assassin with a sharp smile and sharper blades, and 007 is the long-suffering quartermaster who keeps Q alive. And maybe just wants to keep him. For reasons. Chapter 6: In which Bond is oblivious and pining, and Q realizes he has to up his seduction game.





	1. Chapter 1

[Prologue]

“Agent down.” Moneypenny’s voice sounded tinny on the other end of the comm. The MI-6 control room was silent as the grave: a moment of acknowledgement of the agent’s sacrifice from the senior staff, shock from the newest who maybe hadn’t felt Death breathe so close to them before.

Lettered agents didn’t last long and intellectually everyone knew that. There were twenty-six positions, and rarely were they all filled at once. But this Q had been a wily, cagey old bastard who had managed to convince them all of his immortality. A missed shot and a three-hundred foot drop later, and Death had finally caught up to him.

M sighed and stared out at the rain.

 _Q might be the luckiest of them all,_ she thought. _The surly bastard always knew when to make an exit_. If she were a more fanciful person, she might heed the premonition that shivered down her spine.

She’d remember that moment months later, when MI-6 was blown halfway to hell and took half her senior staff, including her top quartermaster, with it.

 

007_Q_007_Q_007

007 felt like shit, knew he looked like shit, couldn’t remember when the last time he slept or ate or drank something not caffeinated, and probably could use a shower and a shave. And yet, here he was, in the National Gallery, staring at a grand old warship being hauled away for scrap, and thinking, _Me too, Temeraire. Me-bloody-too_. He was meeting his new Lettered for the first time, and if the last quartermaster had taught him anything it was to meet them in a public place for the first time. Neutral ground, somewhere neither of them would have the upper hand. God knew the Lettered honed in on weaknesses like sharks scenting blood—you didn’t want your first pissing contest in enemy or familiar territory. The first meeting almost always set the stage for the relationship.

The air changed and a young man with impeccable posture appeared on the other end of the bench, the museum display lights glinting off glasses and wild hair and casting him in a gentle bronze glow. He sighed, more a long exhale through his nose.

“It always makes me feel a bit melancholy. Grand old warship, being ignominiously hauled away to scrap. The inevitability of time, don’t you think? What do you see?”

The boy was beautiful, but Bond really wasn’t in the mood to be chatted up by a pretentious art student wearing an anorak that should be taken outside and burnt. “A bloody big ship. Excuse me.”

He hadn’t more than half-risen from the bench, determined to go haunt some other quiet corner of the museum when: “007. I’m your new Lettered, Q.”

Bond sat back down. “You must be joking.”

“You aren’t what I was expecting either.” That public-school enunciation held an edge, like a dagger wrapped in cool silk.

“Why, because I’m not wearing a lab coat? You still have spots!”

“My complexion is hardly relevant,” Q said serenely.

“Your competence is,” Bond snapped. Holy shit, was he really going to antagonize the highly trained and probably very broken assassin?

“Age is no guarantee of efficiency.”

“And youth is no guarantee of innovation.” Yep, clearly he was on the antagonistic path to a probably quick death. Might as well thoroughly earn it. “I hazard I can do more damage on a computer before lunch than you can do in a year in the field.”

“Oh? So why do you need me?” asked Q with the most honeyed tones 007 had yet heard from any of them.

“Every now and then a trigger has to be pulled,” Bond admitted, deciding to give a little. Had his conversational partner been Letter G, Bond would be half strangled with his own entrails by now.

“Or not pulled,” Q said impishly. “It’s hard to know which when you’re sequestered away in a basement behind a screen and keyboard. 007.”

Bond was about to take offense at the implication that he was little more than an internet troll with a clearance, but then Q smiled at him and held out his hand like a peace offering. The expression was a dark, enigmatic little thing that shot straight down Bond’s spine and tingled in his fingers when they finally shook hands. Behind the glasses—were they necessary or simply an affect?—his eyes were dark green and entirely too intelligent. Still, the smile lit those eyes up with a warmth as sudden as it was unexpected. _Oh, I take it back. This one will be devastating in the field_ , Bond thought, a little dazed.

The smile widened further when Bond handed over Q’s kit. Long, elegant fingers danced over the Walther with admiration.

“The Walther PPK/S nine-millimeter short. It’s been coded to your palm print so only you can fire it,” Bond said.

“Less of a random killing machine, more of a personal statement?” Q grinned outright, appearing completely delighted. “You solved the problem of unreliable print-recognition? How? Or is there an override I should know just in case?”

Bond looked at him appraisingly. “I built a better scanner to take the clearest prints, as well as several intentionally blurry ones to compensate for sweat, oil, and dirt and uploaded all of them to the software. Three years of testing and engineering, and you are holding a biometric weapon that is 99.8 percent reliable. But if you are injured, press your fingertips here,” Bond pointed. “Your own fingerprints are the override code.”

None of the other agents had asked for an override. None of them so much as questioned his work. He was a solid fucking engineer and wouldn’t send his agents out with faulty equipment. They knew that, took the weapons they were given, and went off to wreak havoc with them. Despite his obvious intelligence what right did this kid have to question—

“Lovely,” Q half breathed/half purred over the gun. Bond blinked in surprise. It clearly took all of his control not to take the gun out in the public museum to see for himself.

Well, damn. Bond’s hackles smoothed down. Perhaps he was being too hasty. It was nice to have his work appreciated, for the feat in engineering to be acknowledged as the hard-won victory it was, and Bond’s tired, cranky soul warmed to the praise. “That’s all,” Bond said when they were done. “No exploding pens, I’m afraid. We don’t really go in for that anymore. Before your time, pup.”

“Alas,” Q sighed. “Well, you know what I want for my birthday, then, old man.”

He clicked the case shut and stood.

“And Q—”

“I’ll be sure to return the equipment in one piece, if possible.” Q said, hugging the case to his chest for a moment before he remembered himself and the suave agent mask fell back into place. “Good day, 007.”

With that, Q turned on his heel and sauntered away with a hint of a slouch, suddenly becoming just another art student in a museum. When he was gone, Bond ground the heels of his hands into his eyes. He felt tired and gritty and although this was technically his last task of the day as quartermaster, he decided to take up another project. While Q flew halfway around the world to China, Bond was going to hack the kid’s file. Clearly, the briefing he’d been given was barely the tip of the iceberg.

007_Q_007_Q_007

James Bond hadn’t always been a quartermaster, or even on track to be one. He did his time in the Navy, reached the level of Commander, and been recruited by MI-6. He’d even become Letter B for a short time before the whole mess that was Quantum blew up in his face. When that was over, he’d gotten himself shot in the chest during a routine assignment gone wrong. His time as a Letter had been a shit-show from beginning to end. He’d been too young, too arrogant, and thought he was invincible. He barely survived the shot, and when he woke up in some dodgy hospital in the middle of Nowhere-Gives-a-Rat’s-Arse-ville, he’d decided to take the out that surviving had given him. He did his PT, went back to school for his graduate work in Mechanical Engineering, and was accepted into MI-6’s TSS. He was good at it. His time as an agent gave him an instinct for gadgetry and improvisation, his schooling and apprenticeship to Boothroyd gave him the skills, his time in the military taught him leadership.

But this kid.

He ignored the paper file they’d given him on Q and went looking for the real one. He swigged more pilfered whiskey and stared at the laptop. It took him hours to crack the protection around Q’s file. None of it was encryption that he recognized as his own or his teams’ work. Probably drink-hacking wasn’t the best way to go about it, but three hours in and he’d cracked it. Once he had access, Bond stared at the computer, the lowball glass forgotten at his elbow.

A light flicked on, and Bond flinched.

“Christ, Bond. What have I told you about breaking into my house and computer?”

M shoved the laptop closed and Bond just barely got his fingers out of the way in time. He stared blearily at her, overcome by exhaustion and top-shelf whiskey and half-formed revelations that made his gut feel like snakes were twisting in it.

“I want him.”

M gave him a look that suggested Bond had just drooled on something. “Excuse me?”

“I want him.”

“I heard, but you’ll have to be more specific.”

“Q.” Bond opened the laptop again and spun it around so she could see. “This one is brilliant. Early to college, advanced degrees and honors in Computer Sciences and Engineering, two tours as a Bomb Removal Specialist in Afghanistan and Iraq, speaks French, Italian, Spanish, and Russian. With a mind like his, he’s more qualified to be a quartermaster than I am. And he’s an agent. They die, M.”

She looked at him wearily. “I know, Bond.”

“He’ll probably bleed out in some godforsaken villain’s lair, and it will be a bloody waste. Anyone can shoot things and die. He could do great things with us in TSS. With me.”

“Do you think we don’t know this?” M snapped. “We offered. Hell, we considered him for quartermaster before you. He decided to take the promotion from agent to Lettered instead.”

“He encrypted his own file, didn’t he?” Bond nodded. “That’s dirty pool. A tease. Flaunts his skills out there, and then denies them to me. Jumped up little shit.”

“I think you’ve had enough.” M tucked the laptop under one arm and took the whiskey away. “Go home, Bond. I’m sure you remember where it is. Perhaps a shower wouldn’t go amiss.”

“I need to change,” he allowed. He _was_ a bit ripe and scruffy at the moment, although it wasn’t kind of her to say so.

She finished the whiskey herself and put the glass down on the sideboard. “Go home before you fall over, because you’re bloody well not sleeping here. And Bond? He is attractive, and brilliant, and more than a little lethal. He knows and uses all of it. Try not to seduce him, would you?”

“I’m not going to seduce him. I want his skills.” He thought about it for a minute, working through a haze of twenty year old whiskey and the memory of dark hair and green eyes. “Do you think seducing him would get him to agree to give me his skills?”

Without responding, she turned the light off and left him in the dark.

 

007_Q_007_Q_007

They survived Silva. Barely. But it was exciting. They caught Silva, they lost him in the tunnels, Bond was in Q’s ear during a truly exhilarating chase through the Underground, and stood next to him when things went straight to hell in the courtroom.

“Once more into the breach, dear friend?” asked Q cheekily as bullets flew overhead. He kept his body between M and Silva. “Nice of you to join the party.”

Bond, out of bullets, tossed his gun to the side with a sound of disgust and threw his hunting knife at Silva’s back, hoping his aim was true. Judging from the impressed eyebrow-raise Q gave him and the completely pissed-off expression on Silva’s face as he died, Bond still had it.

“Figured you’d like a good dance partner,” Bond had said. They grinned at each other, blue eyes and green eyes sparkling merrily.

"Oh, for God's sake, you two," muttered M.

It wasn’t a bloodless victory. M got shot, spent almost a week in the Intensive Care Unit. Mallory was appointed the Interim Director, and while everyone fully expected the old battle ax to rally, the political tides were turning against her and mandatory retirement looked like a foregone conclusion. Moneypenny resumed her position as MI-6’s deadliest personal assistant/bodyguard. Bond retreated to his labs, and Q went back out into the field. Tanner continued doing…whatever Tanner did.

All was right in Bond’s world.

Well, until he got kidnapped. That was decidedly _not_ fun.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bond is missing, Q woos some cats, and M's retirement hobby is kind of freaking Q out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late post. Good news is that this is going to be longer than I originally planned on! Bad news is that it's currently the end of semester and thus RL is a bit hectic at the moment. Giant stacks of grading and hordes of students who pick *now* to start worrying about passing...

 

 

One of Q’s favorite secrets was that he liked Jamaica. It was a stupid secret, true, but it made him feel more human. No one expected him to like the tropics. Too much sun and sand, they figured, for MI-6’s most geeky-looking Lettered agent.

Whatever. He liked Jamaica; liked the flow of tourists near the cruise terminals, the beaches, the shack bars by the beach. There was something about the climate—unrelentingly hot and tempestuous in the summertime—and something about the locals and their hard edges that called to the cold, fanged thing in his soul.

It wasn’t a peaceful place. He found more trouble right there on the main streets in Ocho Rios or Montego Bay than in any back alley in London. Poverty rates were incredibly high, and it leant a permanent look of snarling hunger to the island. The _haves_ owned it all in their gated estates, the _have-nots_ prowled cracked streets framed by battered apartment buildings with bright, peeling paint. Just outside city limits were impromptu neighborhoods made up of tar paper shacks.

If Q’s feral side felt comfortable anywhere in the world, it was here. He haunted ballrooms and boardrooms and bedrooms of the European elites, slid through bombed-out shadows in Aleppo, but here, he could feel the ocean in his bones and spend time coiled in the sun like a lethargic snake waiting for unwary prey to wander by. If he finished his mission a day earlier than anticipated and stuck around a little longer, well that was just another little secret he liked to keep.

The Fat Tuesdays bar he frequented looked like the definition of a dive. It wasn’t even a proper building, except for behind the bar. The walls consisted of bamboo sunshades that could be lowered in case of extreme sun or stormy weather. A layer of sand covered the floor, kitsch hung from the ceiling, and a steady trickle of sunburned American and Canadian tourists came in looking for shade and watered down liquor and souvenir glasses with twirly straws and umbrellas. Tackiness aside, the bar was twenty feet from the beach, and Q liked the colorful rum punch with the lime green straw.

He also liked the cats who hung out underneath the palm trees. Lean, scruffy things. But he liked to persist in his efforts to win their affections. Softness, kindness, a little bit of chicken with the spices washed off by his bottled water, and he could usually win one or two over. It made for an engaging game, if Q didn’t think too hard about how pathetic and lonely it made him seem.

Today’s mark was a gorgeous, sandy-colored tom. Well, gorgeous was a relative term. The cat was missing half his tail, had a notched ear, and was huge. Still, it watched him with careful golden eyes, considering the piece of chicken Q offered with a stately, unimpressed air. It sat in a patch of dappled sun, just out of reach.

Q grinned as the tom eventually decided to take the chicken, and allow Q a quick scratch behind huge scarred ears for his efforts. The cat’s fur was rough but Q sank his fingers into it with enthusiasm anyway, stupidly pleased with himself for another feline-seduction mission accomplished. The cat darted away, having had enough of the stranger, so Q settled back to watch the bright turquoise ocean. Maybe he was a bit lonely and pathetic. Maybe a lot lonely and pathetic. Wasn’t that something?

Q fiddled with his earpiece and phone, as though he were making a Bluetooth call.

“Good afternoon, Q.”

“006,” Q said. “I was hoping to speak to 007.”

There was a pause on the other end. “I’m afraid 007 is unavailable at the moment, Q. Is there something I can help you with instead?”

“Where is he?” Q asked. “All week he’s been unavailable or out of the office. Have I offended him? Is he ill?”

006 paused again. Q felt his senses sharpening. “Q, do you have a sit-rep on your assignment?”

“Completed,” Q said. “Why?”

006 sighed gustily. “Look, we were under orders not to tell anyone on active missions, but 007 was kidnapped last weekend. Somewhere between Friday night and Monday morning.”

Q’s blood ran cold. “From where?”

“As far as we can tell, his apartment. He put up a fight. The place was smashed up.”

“Any demands?”

006 went quiet. “None so far.”

Q was up and moving. His hotel room would take a grand total of five minutes to pack up, and he could be at the airport in under an hour. “But you didn’t find a body, so he’s alive.”

He could almost see the big, blond Russian pinching the bridge of his nose. “There was a lot of blood at the scene. Most of it seems to be his. If he isn’t dead, he’s not in good shape.”

“Get me on the next flight out, Alec,” Q said. “I want access to his apartment. What about his phone and laptop?”

“Encrypted to the nth degree, and not a damn one of us can crack it.”

“I want that too.”

“Look, Q, I know that you’re good with tech but you’re not a quartermaster.”

“006, I am better than most of the quartermaster program put together and doubled. Ask M, if you must.”

The Russian swore colorfully at him, but Q thought he sounded more cheerful. “Oh, I’m seeing why Bond likes you so damn much. Well then, take your best shot.”

Q_007_Q_007_Q

Bond lived in an upscale flat in Chelsea, not all that far from Q himself as it turned out. But whatever he was expecting, this was not it. The flat looked more like a spacious showplace than anything. Bond didn’t own much, and nothing was out of place. Q shuffled through the crime scene photos in his hands, mentally reconstructing the scene as it had been discovered on Monday morning following the abduction. The cleaners had already been through, but it was with a twisting stomach that he imagined the bloodstains across the floor and walls, the ugly antique vase in pieces, the coffee table overturned.

Q was used to blood and mayhem, but usually he was causing it. He’d seen casualties of war, of revenge, of IEDs. He didn’t often stand in the middle of a crime scene where the victim was someone he…liked. Someone who should have been kept safe. Someone whose absence should have been noticed immediately, not two days after the fact.

Q stepped lightly, seeing just traces of the man in the space around him. His television center was bare, no DVDs or CDs left lying around. A single bookshelf stood half-full of military histories, biographies, the current year’s issues of National Geographic, and the odd textbook. The kitchen was barren, with old takeout and a few beers in the fridge. His bathroom was Spartan. A straight razor kit was nestled in the top drawer of the vanity, and Q found the bottle of obscenely expensive woodsy aftershave that Bond preferred. Even the bedroom was boring. Black and white like the rest of the flat, bed made with military precision, wardrobe full of Tom Ford and the more comfortable jumpers that he wore down in the chilly bunker. A half-full box of condoms, a bottle of lube, a spare charger, and a trashy spy novel were the only contents of the nightstand.

“Dear lord, Bond. You’ve less of a life than I do,” Q muttered. The only interesting thing that Q did find and approve of involved all the weapons hidden around the flat. He found a standard Walther secreted between the headboard and the wall. Q pocketed it.

Back at headquarters, Q commandeered a desk in a corner of TSS and snarled at anyone who got too close. He had Bond’s phone and laptop, and under the watchful eyes of the TSS minions, got to work cracking them open.

Q’s very blood sang. Some agents still believed that wars were fought with bodies and weapons. Q granted that, but also believed that wars were decided in cyberspace just as well. Bond’s programs fought back, offering firewall after firewall that Q metaphorically undermined or blasted through. When the last wall fell, Q leaned back cracked his back, and called for Mallory.

Q didn’t find a treasure map leading to his missing quartermaster. But he did have some interesting leads on an organization that called itself Spectre.

Lettered agents were dispatched, including Q.

“We need you hunting Spectre,” said Mallory, face set into tired lines. “You found it, you know the most.”

“I didn’t find it, Bond did. I’d prefer to find him.”

“I don’t give a damn what you prefer, Q. Do your job.”

“They’ve had him for how long now? If you want your top quartermaster back, let me look for him.”

“We’ve already assigned junior agents to the task.”

“Junior agents aren’t me. He’s a quartermaster, don’t you think he warrants a Letter?” Q said, his voice going perfectly flat in his agitation. “We’re running against a clock here. He’s already been missing for over a week. If he’s not dead, how long do you think they’ll keep him?”

“Q, we’re working on this. Let us do our job. You do yours. You know as well as I do that Bond is likely dead. This assignment takes priority.”

Q’s lips tightened. He didn’t quite stomp out of Mallory’s office, but it was, for him, the equivalent. Moneypenny raised both eyebrows in commiseration.

“We’ll find him,” she said.

Q slammed the door behind them. Time to see M. The long-time wrangler of the Letters, they’d long ago granted her a Letter of her own, even if it started as a joke (Mother!) and evolved into an honorific. Even now, the actual Letter M was usually called Junior.

Retirement did not suit her. Q took up space on a kitchen stool by the breakfast bar and watched M bake cookies—cookies!—for her grandchildren. It was like an episode of the _Twilight Zone_. Imagining any kind of personal life for M outside of ordering poisonings and going downtown to intimidate Whitehall just seemed weird. Marriage, children, and grandchildren, all felt downright unnatural. M was about as far from a harmless little old granny as one could get.

She gave him a napkin with two warm chocolate chip cookies on it and he stared at it in absolute horror.

“Eat the damn cookies, Q. And stop gaping like a dead fish, it’s unattractive.”

“Sorry M,” he said.

“I’m not M,” she said, dry as the desert.

“You’re always M,” Q said.

“That’s what Bond says.” She smiled, half fond, half exasperation. “Now, kindly tell me why I have a traumatized-looking Letter taking up space in my kitchen. Are you here to kill me?”

“No!” Q was affronted.

“Oh, good,” M said. “That would have been awkward. I’m a terrible shot.” She put down the revolver Q hadn’t seen her hide under a dishtowel. Oddly, the sight of the loaded weapon soothed his sensibilities enough that he ate one of the cookies with an appreciative hum.

She stared at him, a mixture of something in her expression he couldn’t quite identify.

“Bond was kidnapped,” Q said. “And Mallory won’t let me look.”

M put her next batch in the oven and wiped down the counter. “Who got him?”

“He was looking into an organization when he went missing.”

“Spectre,” she said softly.

Q ate half of another cookie, nodding once, grimly.

“You’ve read his file, I assume.”

Q stayed quiet.

“Oh, don’t play coy with me, boy. You both flirted with each other over my corpse.”

“You weren’t dead.”

“Close enough to still be highly inappropriate even by our standards,” she said. “Bond had all the makings of a great agent. He had the stamina, the intelligence, the instinct for it, and more lives than a cat. But his problem was that he didn’t trust anyone. He didn’t trust anyone, so he couldn’t take orders from anyone. He didn’t play well with others when lives were on the line, a lot of people died in his wake, and he went off brief so many times that we were tempted to cut him loose. But he was still highly effective, even with all the rule breaking.”

“You want me to break the rules?” Q said.

“Wherever did you get that idea?” M smiled slightly. “Have another cookie and think about it for a bit. Laptop’s in the other room.”

Q dutifully took another cookie.

“M.” He tilted his head just so. “What exactly is Spectre, and why was it a side project of his? He didn’t tell anyone. But you knew.”

M wiped down the counter, scooping crumbs into the sink. “I told him my suspicions. Spectre is…something that we’ve been dancing around for a while. An organization that lives in the shadows, but still controls or influences enough governments and economies to make us nervous.”

“What, like Moriarty? That didn’t work out so well for Holmes, if I recall.”

M grinned. “Holmes didn’t have a Watson with a license to kill and a genius IQ. And Holmes did eventually triumph.”

“This sounds like a long game,” Q said.

“Oh, yes. Years, probably. And now you’re a part of it. You’ll go get him, of course.”

“Of course.”

“Then get to work. Go retrieve your quartermaster, Q.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Q turns out to be something of a homicidal maniac, rescue happens, and Bond figures out how to get Q to sleep with him. He's quite proud of himself about it, too.

Bond lost track of time. In the beginning he tried marking the days on the wall of his cell, but it didn’t work well. One of the tricks of interrogation was to be unpredictable, make sure the prisoner is constantly kept on the back foot.

The lights in his cell went on and off at bizarre intervals. Sometimes it felt like he had light or darkness for days on end, or just hours. He had a cot without a blanket, a toilet, and a sink. Nothing he could use as a weapon. Hell, even his meals arrived on paper plates, and if he was given utensils at all, it was the cheap flimsy plastic kind. His meals were irregular and never quite enough, always slid through a slot at the bottom of the door without a word from the person on the other side. Bond didn’t trust the food, but hunger eventually broke him down enough to risk the poison or drugs or whatever they put in it. He didn’t feel quite right, but that could just as easily be the result of being confined to a cold square room, barely 10x10 feet..

Whoever had him had a whimsical sense of sadism. Sometimes Bond was treated to music blasting through the speakers nestled high up in the corners of his cell. They never played anything good. Although for a while, Bond was pretty fucked up after being subjected to an endless loop of Christmas carols. It couldn’t possibly be Christmas—he’d been taken in July. But the idea was a nagging one, and he stared at his makeshift calendar distrustfully, trying to do the math.

He whiled the time away by working out and having imaginary conversations with people in his head. Between the stress, the lean diet, and the workouts, the little bit of extra weight that had settled on him in the years after his retirement from active service melted off. His muscles gained definition, and he mournfully thought that he had his six-pack abs and tight ass again, and no one around he wanted to appreciate them.

He wondered if anyone was still looking for him. If they’d finally come through on their promises made years ago to cut him loose or trade him out if he didn’t shape up. It had been a favorite threat from M that he’d never taken seriously. Perhaps he should have.

Unbidden, he thought of expressive green eyes, messy dark hair, and long fingers curled around a cup of steaming Earl Grey. He thought of cat hairs on cardigans, awkward giggling at bad jokes over the comm., of steady hands holding razor sharp blades that whistled through the air in practice. Q was mesmerizing to watch when he worked through martial arts routines. All that lithe, fluid grace and speed.

Bond finished his last set of crunches and laid back on the floor, feeling the chill seep into his sore bones. They didn’t speak to him. All efforts at communication had been rebuffed. The only human contact he got was when they dragged him out of his cell with a black bag over his head, asked him questions that he never answered (and couldn’t answer if he wanted, because the kidnapping protocols would have revoked his access and he’d been gone long enough to not have any working knowledge of active cases), and beat him bloody before sending him back.

The whole set up seemed pointless. Bond knew that his worth dwindled by the day. After a month, his disappearance would be shuffled to a backburner—MI-6 would assume he was dead or cooperating with the enemy. His continued existence mystified him. In truth, it seemed more like he was being kept as a pet. The beatings were perfunctory rather than personal. Even the couple of fingernails they’d ripped out seemed to be less to do with him and more to do with someone’s Checklist of Evil Doings. He was kind of hoping for a monologue. He’d probably get one right before they put a bullet between his eyes.

The door opened. So today was going to be one of those days.

Bond’s vision went red. He figured snapping was bound to happen eventually, but the sight of burly masked men holding that hated black bag was just the trigger he needed. Bond exploded up from the floor, not entirely sure what he was going to do beyond maybe kill these bastards with his own bare hands.

He came back to himself later. Sore, aching, and still kind of pissed off. The black bag was over his head again, and he was tied to a very tall chair, so clearly he lost the fight. Although, he did have a vague yet satisfying recollection of digging his thumbs into some guy’s eyeballs, so maybe he made some kind of impact. His hands did feel sticky, come to think of it.

“I lost a bet,” said a disembodied male voice. _Ah, the interrogator was in_ , Bond thought. “I thought you’d crack a while ago.”

“Fuck you,” Bond said, muffled by the hood.

“Rude. Although, I did say that you’d cause a mess when you did snap, so I won that part, at least. Three of my men are dead, Bond. Clearly something of your field training stuck.”

Bond stayed quiet. The man was clearly in a chatty sort of mood today. Those measured, light tones came from different parts of the room, meaning that he was pacing around him. So, maybe more agitated than that unctuous voice let on.

“So, something special today. I thought about waterboarding. But, well. You’re covered in blood and death, so maybe that wasn’t enough. Have you ever gone to a fair and seen a dunk tank?”

Bond’s muscles felt locked tight, his empty stomach twisting. Another time, another place—a desperate, beautiful woman and a cage sinking into the waters of Venice.

Bond had fooled himself into thinking he was going to die by a bullet. But in this moment he knew his folly. The idea of dying in a tank of water with a hood over his head so he couldn’t even see who it was murdering him had a scream clawing its way up his throat. He clenched his teeth against it, every muscle locked with tension, and felt his eyes tearing up with the effort.

“Ohhh,” his tormentor breathed, pleased. “I should have thought of this sooner.”

There was the sound of a lever and Bond plunged straight down into freezing cold water. It closed over his head, and Bond loosed that scream in one surprised yelp before his Navy training kicked in. The chair lifted back out of the water. He took a ragged gulp of air—the hood made it hard enough to breathe normally, but now that water was involved, it was all he could do to shake his head hard enough to get it off his face.

The chair dropped again.

Rose.

Dropped.

Bond lost count. His breathing ragged, heart pounding in his ears, Bond rather hoped that the last time the chair dropped would be the last time. Just let it end, so he could be done with all of it. Is this what Vesper was thinking when she drowned? Did she find a measure of peace when she purposefully inhaled that river water?

He thought of soft green eyes again, ears popping as he shook his head to find more air to breathe, but this time the eyes weren’t Vesper’s, nor was it her voice calling his name.

And the chair dropped once more. And stayed down.

_This is it_ , he thought. _The universe listened for once_.

And he inhaled.

 

007_Q_007_Q_007

 

…And then he was throwing up.

God, that was unpleasant. He was too fucking old to go on a bender, and he really should tell Moneypenny so.

He opened his eyes, gagging up water and bile, cold as hell as his wet clothes clung to his body. The hood had been flung far away from him.

He heard a soft voice behind him, murmuring sweet nothings that Bond couldn’t quite pick up at the moment. He finished retching and flopped over onto his back. Hands were running all over him, and Q’s face was there, white with anxiety, almost close enough to kiss.

Bond just stared at him, heart pounding. There was a bruise darkening Q’s jaw, blood on his clothes and under his fingernails, but he was the most gorgeous thing Bond had ever seen.

“Am I dead?” he asked.

“Not today, 007,” Q said. His eyes were wide, but his hands were steady, pressed against Bond’s heart and tangled in his hair.

Bond reached up—oh, his hands were free! That was nice—and laid his palm against Q’s cheek, finally managing to get his fingers into that glorious dark hair. Q leaned into the touch for a moment before retreating and pulling them both off the floor.

“We need to go. Can you run?”

“One way to find out,” Bond said, swaying. He and Q were of a height, and right now his agent was plastered against Bond, tucked full length against him like two mates at the end of a pub crawl.

Bond felt the world steady around him. He was cold, sore, angry at the world in general, and specifically annoyed that he didn’t have the time or wherewithal to appreciate Q’s hot breath against his neck or the fact that he finally had the elusive man under his hands.

Q handed Bond a gun. Bond’s favorite gun, the one he kept by his bed.

Bloody hell. Q had been in Bond’s bedroom. On Bond’s bed, because that was the only way to reach this particular gun. His bedroom and his bed, all without Bond. What a goddamn disappointment. Story of Bond’s fucking life.

Q grinned shark-like at him. “Shall we go?”

“Let’s,” Bond said. Q stepped away, scooping his Walther up from the ground and stalked for the door, Bond on his heels.

“Where’s the interrogator?”

Q actually snarled. “Oldest goddamn trick in the book. The choice was go after him or save you. I’ll add it to the list of things I intend to gut him for.”

“You get a look at him?”

“I did. Now shush, we have company.”

Bond hadn’t heard anything, but Q was already firing and another body was on the ground.

There were a lot of bodies, actually. Bond had to step over quite a few littering the hallways. Not all of them were killed by bullets. Several sported Glasgow smiles, and there was the odd gutting. Q’s favorite hunting knife was bloody, and if he were sneaking, he’d use it before the gun. Even with a silencer, guns were noisy.

“They bugged out,” Bond said.

“They would,” Q said, serenely. “I rigged this place to blow up and started with the outbuildings. Cover me.”

Q pulled out his phone and touched a sequence of numbers. In the distance, Bond heard an explosion, felt the building shudder.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“A small abandoned military installation close to the Russian border,” Q said. “Officially, it was supposed to have been demolished over a decade ago, and the land passed into private hands. Imagine my surprise when a quick check of Google Earth revealed a base instead of the sprawling country estate that was supposed to have been built.”

Q skipped to a door, pushed it open with a sweeping bow. “Your freedom, sir,” he said.

It was daytime. The air was nippy, but there was a breeze and sunshine on his face, and Bond was only about an inch from sobbing in relief.

The base was abandoned for real now, but Bond saw evidence of Q’s efficiency littered all over the grounds. The destroyed buildings, the bodies. Q set off another explosion with a self-satisfied grin before loping off to the one vehicle that was still in one piece.

“Where are the others?” he asked Q, who was busily doing something under the hood.

“No one else,” Q said. Bond climbed in the driver’s seat. “Just me, a computer virus or three, a gun and some knives. Start her up and drive. I’ll explain everything when we’re safe.”

 

007_Q_007_Q_007

.

“I’m sorry it took so long to rescue you,” Q said. “But planning things well takes time. Particularly since I wanted to send a clear message about what happens to terrorists who abduct the purveyor of my explosives.”

And plan things he had. They switched vehicles three times, took a route that seemed to Bond to be entirely random, and took turns driving silently through the night. They finally ended up at a train station where Q had reservations for a sleeper car. Once in their room, Q shoved the duffle bag at Bond and went in search of food to give Bond a moment of privacy.

Bond only just stopped himself from reaching out or saying something he’d regret. Something like, _don’t leave me alone_. But Q was already gone, a slender shadow out in the narrow corridor.

Bond opened the duffle, and almost dropped it.

Bond’s possessions were mixed in with Q’s things like they belonged. He located a change of his own clothes expertly rolled up, a comfortable black sweater, and the trashy novel he’d been reading before bed every night before he’d been taken. He ran blunt fingertips over the battered cover, the unexpected moment of whimsical consideration flooring him.

He didn’t find his razor, so he used Q’s in the tiny en suite. Clean, shaved, and warmer now, he picked up his novel and turned it over in his hands while waiting for Q to return. Bond tensed when he heard footsteps and the sliding door open, but it was only Q with a paper bags and smelling faintly of cigarettes. He wordlessly held their dinner out to Bond before gathering up his own clothes and disappearing into the bathroom.

Q had rustled up several cold wrapped sandwiches, crisps, and bottles of water. Bond wolfed one of the sandwiches while he was waiting for Q to reappear.

When he returned, clean and changed from his black gear into dark blue jeans with a vest and a deep red collared shirt, he looked exhausted but his eyes were steely. The scruff on his chin had been shaved off, and when he ran his hands through damp hair he looked like a preppy kid barely out of uni. The cuffs of his shirt were rolled up to his elbows, revealing arms sinewy with muscle.

Their room was small, but Q sat down on the bench opposite of their bunk beds, knees brushing Bond’s.

“Sit-rep, Q,” Bond said softly.

“It’s October,” Q said. “You’ve been missing for about three months. The search was called off six weeks ago.”

Bond nodded. It was what he expected, but to hear it in Q’s measured tones was a bit of a punch to the gut.

“I talked to M,” Q continued. “She bakes now. It’s horrifying to witness. But she sent me some clues. In between missions, I’ve been hunting for you. Some online work, some face-to-face interrogations you don’t need to know the details of.” Q’s smile was a cold, bladed thing. Bond thought of the bodies Q had carelessly left in his wake only a day ago and decided that no, he really didn’t want to know what Q did when he could take his time with things.

“Does anyone know you’re here?”

Q reached for a sandwich. “No. Technically, I suppose I’ve gone AWOL. So much for my promising career in espionage,” he said dryly.

In between sandwiches and crisps, Q brought Bond up to speed in the most general of terms. He’d found the installation, hacked their security and used it not only to infiltrate the base, but also turned the defenses to his own purposes.

“It was pretty easy to turn the turret guns inward and let them loose,” Q said. “And under the cover of chaos, I got to set all kinds of nasty surprises for them. I always did like the Home Alone movies when I was a kid. Your turn.”

Bond sketched out his recollections. The dumb, repetitive questions. The interrogation tactics. Q listened with cold eyes. He sprawled back on the bench, the very picture of predatory stillness, but his feet were still tangled with Bond’s. It was confusing as hell. The man Bond had come to consider something of a friend, the man who had pulled Bond out of that tank and revived him seemed a stranger. But still, one of his calves was intertwined with Bond’s, a warm point of contact that it seemed both of them needed.

Q didn’t trust him, he realized. The idea was shocking. They’d trusted each other from the first. It was what made them such an effective team. The connection had been instant and had not once been actually tested before. But now Q was looking at him like Bond might be an enemy, and Bond had no doubt that if he proved to be, Q would put him down.

But how much did he trust Q? How long had Q known where he was and let him rot there while he planned a one-man rescue? Without MI-6 behind him? There was a lot about Q he didn’t know.

His suspicions didn’t ring true. This was Q. A man who had literally killed a whole lot of people for him. A man who pulled Bond from that water and breathed life back into him. If he meant Bond harm, he could have just let him drown. Bond wouldn’t have known any better.

“You’re going to have to take me in,” Bond said.

“Yes,” Q said.

Ah, more interrogations and cells. But at least the food will be better while they decide whether or not he’s a traitor.

Bond deflated. Three months. He sank back onto the bed, reveling in blankets and a pillow. He didn’t want to sleep. He might wake up in that room again. But the adrenaline was gone and he was warm and full for the first time in ages. Fighting sleep was a losing battle.

Q kept watch from the bench. It occurred to Bond that Q meant to watch him through the night to make sure he didn’t escape.

A neat little idea popped into Bond’s head. He remembered the feeling of Q pressed against him and it was all he could do to keep a straight face. Why not use Q’s distrust of him to get what he wants?

He scooted all the way to the wall, patting the space next to him. “You could always cuff me, or sit there all night. Or you could just come here. We might as well be comfortable.”

Q raised an eyebrow. Bond pointedly closed his eyes and threaded his fingers over his stomach. It would be a tight fit, but he’d lost weight in his captivity, and Q was a skinny strip of bacon anyway.

He heard a soft sigh as Q stood to snatch the pillow and blanket off the top bunk.

“If you try to smother me in the night, I will be cross with you,” Q said, climbing in next to Bond and arranging the blanket over the both of them.

“Duly noted,” Bond said. Q settled next to him, his quiet breathing and familiar faint smell of bergamot and mint sending Bond into the deepest sleep he’d had in ages.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 004 and cat cameos, Q is a manipulative little shit, and Bond has a decision to make.

True to his word, Q escorted Bond all the way to MI-6. They took the train most of the way and what would have been less than a day’s travel by plane stretched out a couple of days. It wasn’t much, but Bond rather thought it was Q’s way of helping Bond reacclimatize to the world and people again. It didn’t stop Q from watching Bond the way a particularly keen hawk tracks a mouse, but Bond didn’t mind. After months of solitude, he probably stuck closer to Q than Q anticipated.

Q noticed, of course. But the agent seemed willing to indulge Bond’s whims, particularly since they soothed his own paranoia. To run away from Q meant that Bond would actually have to be away from Q, and Bond liked having the agent beside him like a lanky, prickly-tempered panther.

The one concession Q did not make again was sleeping arrangements. He kicked Bond up to the top bunk and that was the end of it. Which was a shame. Then again, he had spent a full night in a twin-sized bunk with Bond sprawled over him like a lazy lion.

_[“At least you didn’t lose track of me all night,” Bond told him brightly._

_“And my back may never be the same,” Q said. “Also, you snored. In my ear, for hours. Determinedly so. I’d rather chase you down, if it’s all the same to you.”]_

Once they were home, Q was persistent in dragging Bond straight to HQ. They marched in, two of a kind, like they owned the place. Q grinned with too many teeth and eyes too dark, and Bond sauntered like he’d spent three months on vacation in the Mediterranean instead of a villain’s secret lair.

Q was in the hot seat first. The row in Mallory’s office was remarkable. Guarded by two agents at the door, Bond sat in the outer room with Moneypenny, listening to Mallory shout. It wasn’t an uncommon occurrence. Hell, Mallory still yelled at Bond once a month or so.

What was extraordinary was that Q yelled back. Bellowed even, in a tone more apt for a drill sergeant than a soft-spoken, slender agent. Even Moneypenny paused in her work, favoring Bond with wide dark eyes.

There was the sound of something thudding onto wood, and then complete silence and murmured tones. A few seconds later, Q stalked out. Everything about him, from the smooth rolling stride to his high color and glittering, flinty eyes emanated bloody murder.

Q paused just behind Bond’s chair, and he thought he felt the agent’s cold fingers brush Bond’s shoulder. “Mallory is ready for you,” Q said, his enunciation as crisp as ever. “Good day, 007, Miss Moneypenny.”

Mallory still looked pissed off even as he poured them both drinks, and Bond spotted the reason why pretty quick. In the middle of the heavy wooden desk sprouted a very familiar dagger. It had been driven straight down into the wood at least an inch.

“Bloody hell, what did you say to him?” Bond asked, marveling at the dagger and the strength (or rage) behind the gesture.

“Never you mind,” Mallory said, knocking back his drink in one go before trying to pry the dagger out of his desk. “Tell me, Bond. Have you slept with him?”

Bond froze, torn between surprise and outrage. “Sir—”

“Good. Don’t. Because he seems inordinately attached to you and I’d hate to see what our favorite mild-mannered lunatic would do if you managed to seduce him properly. I’m sure he’s your type, but maybe give him a wide berth, for all our sakes.”

First M, then Mallory. Both warning him off, like Q was some kind of rabid predator. Not that their advice mattered overmuch; he’d be a quartermaster again before long and Q would be halfway around the world, happily murdering people who had it coming.

Mallory set the dagger on top of a stack of papers in front of him. “You know the protocols. As glad as I am to see you alive, I can’t give you back your clearance until we’re sure you haven’t been compromised. You’ll be interrogated and kept here on site until then. Now, I’ve heard Q’s version of events. I want to hear yours. Start from the beginning, and leave nothing out.”

 

007_Q_007_Q_007

The interrogation went on for over a week. But he was given a clock, regular meals, showering privileges, and was allowed limited movement under guard. He expected he probably had Q to thank for the considerations, although he didn’t see the man once. According to Moneypenny, he’d been sent back out to the base to help with the investigation and the cleanup as punishment.

On the ninth day, Bond was given his clearance and his freedom, but not before enduring daily sessions with a shrink who asked probing questions Bond really didn’t want to answer. He’d never been cooperative before, he had no intention of starting now. And needling the shrink oddly helped restore a sense of normalcy and his faith in himself as a resilient arsehole.

That, more than anything, cheered him immensely.

The psychiatrist left after their word game, nonplussed. Eve Moneypenny claimed the empty chair across the table from him in the interrogation room. Bond was sick of small gray rooms; if he never saw damp underground bunker again he’d count it too soon. (Bad news, considering he worked in one, but at least that was _his_.)

“You’re prettier than the last shrink,” Bond said.

“Of course I am,” Moneypenny said. “I am the patron goddess of MI-6, and he’s a middle-aged mortal who primarily deals with the leashed monsters we call the Lettered. How are you doing, James?”

“I’m dead, apparently.”

And wasn’t that a nasty surprise. After he’d been declared dead, they’d packed up his things and sold his flat to someone else. You’d think they’d wait for a while.

“Lucky for you, I’m good at resurrection,” she said. She opened her briefcase and pulled out a stack of files.

Bond arched a pale eyebrow. “I’m pretty sure I could set up a fake alias or three with half of that paperwork.”

She wagged a finger at him. “Don’t get snippy. Bringing someone back from legal death is a chore. But even more so when that person has to be reinstated with a high security clearance and brought up to speed on his own Branch.”

Bond winced. “All right. Where do we start?”

“Bank accounts. I assume you like having money.”

“It does help. Do I get hazard pay?”

“If it keeps your adorable scary boyfriend from getting stroppy on your behalf again, yeah. Sign this.”

“He’s not my boyfriend. Christ, Moneypenny. _Boyfriend_. High school was a long time ago.”

She made noises at him that could have meant anything. “Well, if he’s not your boyfriend, don’t go rocking that particular boat.”

Bond threw down the pen. “What is it with all of you? We’re friendly. That’s it.”

“He orchestrated the deaths of twenty some-odd people in a single go for you. By Lettered standards, that’s practically a declaration.” She leaned back in her chair, all pretense of paperwork given up as she grinned at him. Her pen tapped absently against the table.

“Come on. You know I prefer women.”

“ _Prefer_. Interesting term. Continue your excuses.”

“And who the hell knows about his preferences.”

“Who indeed.”

“He has cats. Two cats.”

“So he’s very single. And probably very not-straight. What single straight guy do you know who has two cats?”

“He’s a Letter who’s probably going to go run off and die on m—us.”

Moneypenny’s smile dimmed. “Probably. But I think we underestimate our dear Q’s ability for literal and figurative bloody-mindedness.”

“And I might have promised M that I wouldn’t seduce him. She might have made me swear not to, whilst on what she led me to believe would be her deathbed. After all, she’s a seventy year-old woman who caught a bullet, it seemed plausible at the time.”

She gaped at him. “Cagey old bitch.”

“That’s what I said.”

“You’ve never been one for rules before. Why start now?”

Bond felt an eye twitch coming on. “Whose side are you on, Moneypenny?”

“Patron goddess of MI-6,” she reminded him. “Double-dealing and treachery keeps things interesting. Sign your papers, Bond, we haven’t all day.”

 

The quartermaster’s branch was completely unchanged. Bond stood in the doorway of his lair, breathing in the familiar smell of stress, coffee, computers, and smoke from whatever was on fire. Everyone seemed a bit on edge, but Bond was pretty sure that a general state of nerves was normal. Wasn’t it?

“007!”

Heels clicked on the concrete floor, and a curvy little brunette wearing blood red lipstick and a white lab coat half-tackled Bond in a sudden bear-hug.

“Scarlett, hello,” Bond said. 004 released him, only to thread her arm through his companionably.

“Hello yourself, handsome. About time you came down here. We got you a ‘welcome back’ cake, and everything.”

“Oh? What kind?”

“Chocolate. But you took so long we ate it all. It was delicious.”

“Thank you for the thought, I guess.”

“Quite welcome,” she said, squeezing his arm. “We missed you. Trevelyan keeps yelling and swearing at everyone in Russian, and the techies find it off-putting. Also, he keeps talking about his latest smart bomb like it’s a beloved pet. He named it Fluffy. No one is brave enough to ask why Fluffy. Would you mind inflicting him on Baskerville for a while?”

“Gladly,” Bond said. Scarlett paused at the entryway of Bond’s office.

“Cheers. Oh, and James? Your lovely Q came a-prowling for you.”

“He’s not my Q.”

“Sure, sure.” But she was already on her tablet, waving a hand dismissively at him. “Good luck with the mountain of paperwork.”

Bond sighed and stepped into his office. His personal effects were in a box on the futon in the corner, and a stack of papers occupied his desk. Someone had tied a shiny ribbon around it, like a Christmas present. Bond snorted a bit of a laugh. Unfortunately, he worked with too many weirdoes to be able to pin down who it was with any degree of accuracy.

He settled into his chair, logged into his computers, and—in the privacy of his own office and away from prying eyes for the first time in ages—deflated. He pressed his hands against his eyes.

It’s been easy to shove everything to the back of his mind. Between Q’s rescue and the activity of being under MI-6’s microscope, Bond had been able to put one foot in front of the other and just keep moving.

Bond counted backward from a hundred and opened his eyes.

To work, then. He checked on his active missions, looked through department reports and budgets, and when the numbers started to get to him, he switched to going through his email. Hours flew by until his eyes got gritty and his head started to pound. It would take him a while to catch up, but at least he’d go home with a decent idea of what he missed.

Home. He didn’t have a home. He’d have to find a hotel. Bugger.

Bond stretched, feeling his back and neck click back into alignment.

His eyes fell on his bulletin board. He’d ignored it earlier in favor of his work, but now his attention was arrested by one unexpected thing. He got up and retrieved a sticky note transfixed with a familiar throwing dagger. An address.

Oh, this was a bad idea, probably.

But Moneypenny was right. He really wasn’t one for rules.

 

007_Q_007_Q_007

Q lived in a small house in an idyllic little neighborhood. It was the sort of place where boring, normal, everyday people lived and played and raised their families. Walked their dogs. Maybe had occasional spats with the homeowners association, while little old ladies twitched their curtains to spy on each other and little old men trimmed their hedges religiously.

Incongruous with what he thought he knew about the man, Bond thought, raising his hand to knock on the door.

Q greeted him at the door, dressed down in jeans and a ratty Star Wars t-shirt. The thick-framed glasses were back…so perhaps not quite an affect after all.

“You came.” Q sounded surprised, but he fell back from the door and let Bond inside anyway. The foyer opened up into the living room.

Whatever Bond was expecting, it wasn’t this. Q was a clutter bug. Bookcases lines the walls, crammed full of books and films. Two cats—a portly little tuxedo, and a veritable panther of a Russian Blue—climbed on the back of the sofa, turning enquiring yellow eyes on the newcomer. Q scratched both of them on the head as he walked by, murmuring sweet nothings to them.

“Want something to drink?” he asked. Bond followed him to the kitchen, watched one of the deadliest men he knew get Bond a glass of water. Along an unused portion of the wall leading to the backyard, Q had automated cat feeders and water machines.

“What am I doing here?” Bond asked.

“You don’t have an apartment. Hell, you barely have a legal identity.” Q said. “We also don’t know if the threat to you is completely over. It seemed a solution to all problems that I offer my spare bedroom until things are sorted out. No need to worry about bothering me, you know I spend a lot of time out of country. And the cats won’t mind the company while I’m gone.”

Q pressed the glass into Bond’s hands. “And. I wanted to talk to you about our project.”

“Our project?”

“Mm-hm. Spectre. M read me in. Over cupcakes.” Q looked profoundly disturbed.

“You do realize that MI-6 is working on Spectre.”

“The fringes, yes. They’re scooping up the cells that the Powers That Be are willing to cut loose. Small terror cells and human traffickers, but nothing that ordinary law enforcement wouldn’t eventually trip on.” Q crooked a finger and Bond found himself following on Q’s heels as he went down into the basement. Bond paused on the steps, causing the other man to look back at him, at first confused and then understanding.

“In your own time,” Q said, flipping on the light. He whistled once, sharply, and Bond heard little paws padding around him as the cats followed their master downstairs.

Well. If the cats were going down into the basement with Q, Bond wasn’t going to be shown up by the furballs. He found the other man at the bottom of the stairs. This part of the house looked well lived in for a different reason.

A corner of the basement was dedicated to exercise equipment. The rest was a combination of weapons locker and hacker’s den. Q had a giant screen mounted on the wall, and a lot of the computer equipment looked customized.

“She gave me some names, including Sciarra’s. Haven’t found him yet, but we will.”

The big Russian Blue sat at Q’s feet and meowed at him. “Yes darling girl, he’s a bad man,” Q said absently. He sat at his desk, clicking through the info he’d gathered for Bond’s benefit. The blue leapt up onto his lap, and he leaned back in his chair, feet on the desk, as the cat flopped over.

If Bond ever wondered what Q would look like if he were the sort of villain to plot world domination, he had his answer now. He looked like the world’s most malevolent geek, all whipcord muscle and green eyes, absentmindedly stroking a gigantic gray cat half as big as him, while the light from the computer screens glinted off his glasses.

“You’ve been busy.”

“In between missions, when I have the extra time and brainpower,” Q said, clicking it all off when Bond started pressing his fingers into his eyes. “It’s another reason to invite you over. Plotting isn’t as much fun when it’s an individual sport. Probably why so many miscreants monologue their plans at us.”

“Honestly, Q. When you decide to take over the world, do me a favor and just do it. Don’t warn me.”

“You’re no fun, 007.”

Q hoisted the small panther in his arms, kissed the cat between her furry ears, and led the way back upstairs. The cat purred like a rusty motor, her long tail coiling around Q’s arm, gigantic paws stretching and contracting in happiness.

“Spare room is down that hallway, to the left,” he said, nodding in the direction. “Make yourself at home. Oh, and Bond. If you have to wake me for any reason…”

“Don’t touch you, stand in the doorway and turn on the light.”

“Just so,” Q said, going back to the living room.

Bond ventured down the hallway, dimly aware that the little black-and-white cat was with him.

The guest room looked bland as hell. Bond wondered if Q had cleaned it out specially for him or if it was just the décor.

The décor. It looked oddly familiar.

That arrogant little shit. Bond grinned. Q had dug some of Bond’s stuff out of storage: his bedroom furniture, and at least some of his clothes.

Q was playing a long game here, although to what end, Bond wasn’t sure. But if he was right, and Q was so rarely wrong, Bond might still be under a threat that would only increase if he kept digging at Spectre.

They were in it together, Bond thought. This was Q’s overly manipulative way of assuring Bond that he had his back inasmuch as he could manage. If Bond accepted the hospitality, he’d be assuring Q of the same. At least if one of them disappeared, it probably wouldn’t go unnoticed for so long. A hard, cold knot in Bond’s chest loosened.

“Well?” Q asked softly. Bond hadn’t heard him approach, but the agent lounged in the doorway, hands in pockets, looking impossibly young even though Bond knew well the man was in his mid-thirties. His eyes were dark green behind his glasses, his hair looked like one of his cats helped him style it, and he was quite possibly as alone in the world as Bond was.

“This could go on for years. One or both of us could get killed. People have died already.” Bond said.

Q shrugged. “Your point?”

Bond held out his hand, not really knowing what to say. _Thank you_ seemed so trite. _Don’t die on me_ , seemed melodramatic.  Q seemed to understand, and met him halfway, callused palm sliding against callused palm in a firm shake.

The doorbell rang.

“I hope you like Thai food,” Q said.

“I hope you ordered extra spring rolls.”

“I’m not a savage, Bond. Of course I did.”

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fluff warning ahead: In which Q is all kinds of adorable, whether he’s sleep deprived or drunk off his ass at the annual Christmas party.

 

 

Something felt off in the house.

Bond woke quickly, glanced at the alarm clock that read 3:13am. The cats, which had been doing their best to hog his bed and pillow since all three of them retired at the old-man hour of 9pm, were both alert and crouched at the end of Bond’s bed.

Natasha, the gigantic Blue, made a little chittering sound and Jack meeped back. Bond reached into the nightstand and retrieved his Walther. Two sets of shining eyes looked at each other, then Bond, and then peered into the gloom beyond Bond’s bedroom door. As one, the two cats softly slinked off the bed and out of the room.

 _This is what my life is now_ , Bond thought. _Skulking in the dark, debating with the cats about who goes to check on the bump in the night first_.

Bond padded down the hallway in bare feet, clearing the house as he went.

He lowered the gun. If the intruder was the typical homicidal murderer sort, he wouldn’t be in the kitchen, crooning at the cats winding adoringly around his ankles, and drinking orange juice straight from the jug.

“Get a glass, Q. I don’t want to catch mono from my morning juice,” Bond said.

Q sputtered for a second, then “Fuck you, Bond.”

Then he took a defiant swig—damage was done, anyway—before recapping the jug and putting it back. Bond flicked on the overhead light.

His erstwhile roommate made a cute disgruntled noise, blinked owlishly at him, and lurched over to flick the light off again.

“Is that blood?” Bond asked.

“Merely a flesh wound.” Q said.

Bond put the gun on the kitchen counter. “I’ll get the first aid kit.”

“It’s fine.”

Bond flipped the light back on.

Q hissed, sounding remarkably like one of his cats. In fact, both cats looked halfway impressed at their master.

Bond wondered if he’d have to resort to injured cat taming techniques to get him to cooperate. He was almost sure that he could wrap Q in a towel like a burrito to immobilize him long enough to get some painkillers down him. Baleful green eyes dared him.

“You’re bleeding and look like someone’s favorite punching bag.”

“Yeah, you’re real pretty too, Bond. Move, so I can go take a shower.”

Bond moved past him to the refrigerator, pulled out a carton of eggs. “Go take your shower. Come back with the kit. You have ten minutes, and then I’ll come after you.”

Q blinked at him.

Bond paused, cracking an egg into a bowl. “Did I stutter, agent?”

Q went.

Bond listened until he heard the shower click on, and then grinned at himself and got back to work. Scrambled eggs and toast were easy to make and easy on a stomach after a rough assignment. He put on the kettle as an afterthought. No caffeine, but he knew Q kept a stash of chamomile tea for the nights he wanted to unwind with his cats and the telly, because Q really was the 80 year old man he sometimes dressed like.

He’d given Q ten minutes, but at just over five Bond heard the water shut off and Q padded back into the kitchen dressed in tartan pajama pants, a towel clung over his shoulder, and a heavy first aid kit that he put on the kitchen table. He came over to investigate, standing close enough to Bond that he could feel the heat radiating off Q from the shower, but out of the way of any sudden splatters.

“Smells good,” Q said.

“When was the last time you properly ate and slept?”

“Yesterday? Might be the day before. Oddly enough, chasing down a notorious poisoner doesn’t do much for one’s appetite and does a lot for one’s paranoia. Especially since she managed to dose me with something a week ago. It’s fine, I lived,” he added, yawning. “But I’ve basically been subsisting on things you get in sealed packages. Granola bars. So many granola bars, Bond, it was awful. Graduate school and the army all over again.”

Q’s head tipped forward until his forehead clunked against Bond’s shoulder blade. The toaster popped up and Q made a purry, approving noise. A couple beats later, the pressure against Bond was gone and Q was slouched over the counter, nibbling on plain toast. Bond stirred the eggs and tried not to grin. Sleep deprived Q was one of the best Qs.

Since they’d moved in together, it had been an exercise in finding a balance between the two of them existing in the same spaces. They had their pet project of Spectre that simmered on the backburner, because Bond really did work long, unusual hours and Q was often gone for days or weeks at a time, coming back at all hours of the day and night, in various states of bruised and bloody. More than once, Bond had returned home to find his agent sprawled out on the sofa, covered in cats and dead to the world.

“I assume you got her, then,” Bond said.

Q made an agreeable sound and then focused on a Tupperware that he snatched up.

“Biscuits,” he said, clutching the container lovingly. “You went to M’s without me. And she gave you ginger biscuits. She never gives me leftovers. Clearly, she loves you more, even though I’m skinnier.”

Bond put the eggs on a plate with a fork and handed it to Q, exchanging the food for the container of baked goods before Q could react.

“Eggs, stitches, then biscuits.”

The look he got was the definition of disgruntled. “Fuck you harder and sideways, Bond, you’re not the boss of me.”

Bond bit his tongue to keep from laughing at the angry damp kitten. It was too early in the morning, and Q’s language got downright filthy when his filters were gone. “Technically, I am.”

Q flicked a middle finger at him and wolfed down the eggs anyway, while Bond looked at Q’s stitches on his ribs. It wasn’t too bad, really. The edges of the knife wound were already knitting together. A few of the stitches had been pulled, so Bond prepared to replace them. To his credit, Q didn’t flinch. He just swallowed a couple painkillers and let Bond get on with it. It was easier to let his quartermaster fuss over him than to fight him over it.

Bond taped a fresh bandage down and surveyed his handiwork.

“Do I pass muster, Commander?” asked Q. Exhaustion and pain deepened the purple circles under his eyes, but he looked at Bond through his lashes anyway, eyes too green and smile a little too knowing. Bastard. He might have everyone convinced that he was this dark angel with glorious fluffy hair, but the man was really a demon and he knew it.

Bond arched an eyebrow. He’d heard that tone before, right before the man seduced whatever he wanted out of his mark. He didn’t sleep around as much as some of the Letters, but whenever Q turned on the charm and batted his eyes, he could get just about anyone to fall in love with him for a night. Or longer.

So it was with a heroic effort that Bond stepped back and became the very picture of nonchalance. “It’s almost 4 in the morning, Q, and one of us actually has an office job in about three hours. I’m going back to bed. Goodnight.”

And just to be petty, Bond turned the kitchen light off on his way out.

He wasn’t entirely sure, but he rather thought that he heard the other man let out a completely non-sexy snorting giggle.

When Bond’s alarm went off an hour and a half later and he stumbled into the kitchen in search of coffee, he found it already percolating. The dishes were already done and the first aid kit put away.

Yeah, living with Q wasn’t awful.

 

Q_007_Q_007_Q

Q’s injuries, minor by Lettered standards, still earned him a grounding for two weeks from Medical. Q wasn’t particularly sorry about it. They’d been sending him abroad with little more than a couple days off in between for months. Unfortunately for him, he wasn’t the sort to disappear very long for impromptu downtime—and why would he want to hide out overseas when his cats were at home?

Granted, Bond looked after them while Q was gone now, so Q worried less but he still missed them. And frankly, was a teensy bit jealous whenever he came home and found his cats hanging all over the other man. Especially Jack. While Nat was clearly Q’s little cat-girl, he was almost certain that Jack had thrown him over for Bond.

Maybe it was the suits? Bond was the sharpest dressed quartermaster of the bunch, with his Tom Ford suits and ties, so maybe the tuxedo cat felt a kinship. Who the hell knew.

Q lazed about at home for a few days before that got boring and he went in to Six, looking for entertainment. Or a fight. If he got too bored, he could always go to TSS and bother them for something to do. China wouldn’t hack itself, and Q did like tweaking the Russian’s noses every so often.

There was something of a downside to the enforced leave near the end of the year, as Moneypenny cheerfully reminded him when she cornered him in the gym where he’d been cycling through various martial arts katas.

“The Christmas party,” Q said blankly. He threw a roundhouse kick and followed it smoothly with a spin hook kick at face level. “What about it?”

“You’ll be here, so we’ll expect you to join in the festivities.”

“I’d rather not, but thanks all the same.”

Moneypenny’s smile was shark-like. “Come on. We both know that you’ve an ugly Christmas jumper somewhere. And it’s not like a Letter to pass up an open bar.”

“Are you sure you don’t need me somewhere in Columbia? Any drug cartels getting uppity?”

“Q.”

“Moneypenny.”

“Don’t be difficult. And wear something nice. Party starts at 1800 hours, Friday night. If it helps, all executive heads of branches are required to attend, barring international emergency, so consider yourself part of the protection detail.”

 “A protection detail who drinks?”

Moneypenny patted him on the arm. “Darling, even shitfaced on experimental eggnog from R&D, you can shoot alarmingly straight and ballroom dance flawlessly. Remember last year? You made half the women and a fair few men swoon on the dance floor with a sudden display of alpha masculinity when you danced the tango to Pitbull’s ‘Timber’ with Scarlett Papava. Then you abducted M from a boring conversation with the PM for a foxtrot. And then it was the PM’s turn because you didn’t want him to feel slighted, and you led him a merry waltz to ‘All I Want For Christmas is You.’”

“Oh, my God.”

“Then the night ended on a high note after you challenged three Letters and the Director of Medical to duels on the firing range. And won, by shooting smiley faces into the targets when M said you couldn’t actually shoot another human being, honor debt or otherwise.”

Q went cold with horror, although his face felt like it was on fire. “All that actually happened? I thought it was a really strange fever dream from the flu or something.”

“Oh, no. That night’s performance was what guaranteed you a promotion to a Letter. So. Friday night, wear something nice, don’t be late.”

Q just nodded mutely at her back as she clicked away on lethal high heels.

Well, it certainly sounded like he had a lovely time last year. And if he was going to be forced to attend, then might as well make the most of it.

 

007_Q_007_Q_007

Bond wasn’t fast enough to dodge Moneypenny when she came around to TSS about his attendance to the Christmas party. He’d managed to avoid it last year (although all reports said it was a rousing success) by pulling an extra shift in TSS and throwing Boothroyd to the eggnog-addled wolves.

[ _“Oh, you’ll want to come this year,” she said, the very picture of mischief. Her teeth were very white when she smiled, and Bond’s lizard brain started looking for somewhere to hide. “We’ll be expecting you. And if you try to engineer any crises to get out of it, I’ll hunt you down and sic the head of Accounting on you.”_

 _She patted his chest twice and walked away_.]

Well, with a threat like that.

So here he was. Hiding behind a plant with a glass of something that he was told was eggnog, but based on the fumes wafting off the punch bowl, he wasn’t so sure. He wondered if he could pour the eggnog into the plant without anyone noticing.

“She got you too, I see,” said a soft voice at his shoulder. Q was dressed in a sharp suit and a garish reindeer tie, and holding a full cup of dubious eggnog.

“She threatened me with Anderson.”

“The horror.” Q contemplated his eggnog, and then with a resolute expression, chugged it down.

“Indeed. You’re not actually going to…oh you are. Brave.”

“Brave is not the word you’ll be using later,” Q said, wheezing. “ _Goddamn_ but this shit’s nasty. I don’t want to know what’s in it.”

Then he switched their cups and chugged Bond’s entire eggnog, too.

“Q?”

Q handed Bond the empty cup and physically moved Bond so the broader man blocked prying eyes from Q’s antics.

“The music is awful. If I have to hear about figgy pudding one more time, I’ll find a figgy pudding and choke someone to death with it.”

“I have no idea what figgy pudding is,” Bond said, watching Q do illegal things on his phone.

“No one knows what figgy pudding is, 007. It’s probably ghastly. There.”

The Christmas carol cut out and something more modern with a heavy bass started up. Q grinned in a way that made Bond uneasy as Q pocketed his phone.

“Excellent. Much better, don’t you think?”

“Are you all right?”

“Splendid. Warm in here, don’t you think? I feel like dancing.”

Q giggled and loosened his tie with one finger, before he swaggered back out to the party.

Q danced beautifully. And he danced with everyone. Gender, rank, marital status, young or old, none of it mattered. He seemed determined to dance with anyone who caught his eye, and in quick succession he’d waltzed with a bemused Mallory and half the secretary pool, allowed Moneypenny to lead in an upbeat swing, and caught 004 up into an Argentine tango that had Bond loosening his own tie. For a willowy-looking guy, he had no problem displaying his surprising strength while he kicked, lifted, and wrapped around one of Bond’s favorite quartermasters. Former favorite quartermasters, now, because he was never going to be able to un-see that dance. It was an inch from pornography with clothes on.

It occurred to Bond that forty-two might be too young to sound so old.

Actually quite a few people looked glazed over, when they weren’t angling to catch Q’s dancing attentions.

Q and Scarlett finished their tango with a dramatic dip, and Scarlett leaned up to plant a solid kiss on Q’s cheek. The persona of the smoldering Argentine cowboy immediately broke and Q giggled along with her.

“He’s too adorable to be a Letter, sometimes,” Moneypenny said, standing shoulder to shoulder with Bond.

“That’s what the enemy thinks, too,” Bond said.

Moneypenny relieved Bond of his drink. “No talk of enemies tonight.” Then she shoved him onto the dance floor. “Quit being a wallflower, Bond, and get in there before someone decides to take him home. Or he decides to keep stripping down. Although, next year, remind me to order a pole.”

Bond wasn’t sure how to respond to that, even though her concerns about impromptu stripping seemed legitimate. As the night wore on, Q seemed to be steadily losing his clothes.

First it was the suit jacket, abandoned over a chair. Then the waistcoat. Bond’s plant was now wearing the garish Christmas themed tie (seriously, it looked better on the plant, hopefully Q would forget it there), and then the dark red collared shirt was untucked and unbuttoned. Bond was pretty sure that the sight of lean muscle was too much for one of his TSS minions because she stared with a glazed look in her eyes.

“Oh, Bond,” Q said, lighting up when Bond approached him. “Hello. Having fun?”

“Not as much fun as you are.” Bond smiled, because really, how could he not? Drunk and dancing Q was an unexpected Q who was too damn endearing.

Q grinned back wickedly. “Shall we dance, my dear quartermaster?”

“You know what? We shall.”

Bond pulled Q in close. Everyone was dancing with Q tonight, so taking a turn wasn’t likely to get him into trouble.

“Oh, Mr. Bond,” Q said, fluttering his eyelashes outrageously. “I take it you’d like to lead this one.” Bond led them in a loose foxtrot around the dance floor, Q following his lead without question.

“We should make all of our Letters do this,” Bond said. “Dance with their handlers. Perhaps you lot would listen to us more. Call it a team building exercise.”

“We’re not even halfway through our first dance ever and you’re already talking about leaving me to dance with another Letter? For shame, 007. First, Jack throws me over for you, then I’m not M’s favorite, and now I’m not even yours.”

Bond snorted. “You’re never going to let that go, are you?”

“I’m heartbroken. You didn’t correct me.”

“Fishing for compliments is unattractive, Q.” Besides, thinking about Q being a favorite was dangerous enough. To actually say anything about it out loud would be…well, there be dragons. Bond was aware of Mallory, Moneypenny, and Tanner watching from the buffet table with cryptic expressions. He pulled Q just a little bit closer anyway.

Bond felt Q’s laugh in the sudden gust of hot breath on his neck and the slight hitch in his steps. The song switched to Michael Buble’s version of “Save the Last Dance” and Bond’s foxtrot devolved into a bit of swaying on one corner of the floor. Q straightened in Bond’s hold and took control. With a raised eyebrow, Bond let him.

“You ought to have danced with me sooner,” Q said. “You’re very good, and haven’t stepped on my toes once.”

Still, it looked like Q was beginning to wilt a bit. His eyes were bright and his color was high from the sheer amount of dodgy R&D moonshine-eggnog he’d consumed.

“I haven’t dueled anyone tonight,” Q said in Bond’s ear. “Although, if Anderson bothers you about the quarterly budget, I’d be happy to.”

“I think you’ve dueled enough people on my behalf this year, Q.”

“True. So if Kevin from Medical comes anywhere near me, I expect you to repay the fever. Favor! The man is entirely too free with needles.”

“Deal.”

“Is that my tie on the plant?”

“No, pretty sure it isn’t.”

“I think you’re lying.” The dancing devolved back to gentle swaying. Q rested his forehead on Bond’s shoulder, and Bond shifted his grip to accommodate.

“With instincts like that, you should be a spy.”

Another chuckle against Bond’s neck. “Are you taking me home tonight?”

“We live together,” Bond reminded.

Q sighed gustily into Bond’s collar, sounding disappointed. “Right.”

That note of disappointment stuck with Bond as he ushered Q home and poured him into his bed with his cats and some painkillers.

It also occurred to Bond that he was the only one who got two dances the entire night.

What the hell.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bond grinned. “Are you seducing me, Q?”  
> “Well, you promised everyone and their mother that you’d be a boy scout, apparently. Took me a while to figure out why all my flirting, sweaty sparring sessions, and all the damn wandering around half naked wasn’t working. I’ve spent months draping myself across our furniture suggestively.”
> 
> In which Bond is oblivious and pining, and Q realizes he has to up his game.

 

 

 

Bond was going to die. And go to heaven. Or hell.

Maybe he already died and this was his reward?

If not, M was going to kill him.

If Q didn’t kill him first.

Although, Q seemed pretty happy with him at the moment, so.

A chuckle alerted Bond to the fact he’d said most, if not all of that, out loud.

Teeth delivered a sharp bite to the hinge of his jaw. “Stop thinking,” Q said, swirling his tongue around the shell of Bond’s ear before delivering on a kiss demanding enough and filthy enough and tasting of whiskey good enough to curl Bond’s toes. Bond wasn’t sure what had happened but now he had a lapful of Q, who pressed against him with an encouraging sound as he raked his fingers across Bond’s scalp.

Bond saw stars. Q’s teeth scraped down his jugular to nip at his collarbone. Bitey little thing, who’d have thought it?

It was enough to spur him into action. His hands slid up Q’s back, smooth but for the odd scar, fingers counting the divots in Q’s spine and playing out over the whipcord muscles from long hours of strength training. Q arched into his hands, purring and panting breathily.

Bond really, really needed to hear that sound again.

Q slid off Bond’s lap, long fingers wrapped around Bond’s wrist as he dragged him across the club to the loos.

Oh, right. They were in public. Decency laws and all that.

 Q pulled him into the loo, gave the lone man washing his hands a look and a snarl that had the man tripping over his feet in his haste to escape. Q locked the door after the man and Bond found himself shoved against a wall opposite of the door.

Alone.

Q’s back was to the locked door, both palms pressed against the doorjambs, controlling his breathing and…other things. Bond wasn’t entirely sure what was going on, but his lizard brain a) was pleased as punch that Q wasn’t nearly as unaffected as he was trying to look, and b) Bond knew better than to reach out and touch, although he couldn’t articulate why.

Q grinned at Bond, all blades and the promise of blood, but his eyes had gone black and flat. Q watched him from beneath his lashes, the long column of his throat bared with deceptive invitation. His thin chest stopped heaving and evened out with the long, deep breaths of a hunting predator. Bond’s own breathing mirrored his. Outside, the steady bass thudded in dull time to Bond’s heartbeat.

This was the Q who worked in the field. Bond had seen echoes of this a few times in TSS, either directly post-mission when Q was still edgy and looking for a fight, or when Bond let him in on a hackathon or other computer-related mayhem. He’d seen shades of this when Q rescued him the previous year. In any case, in a dingy restroom in Florence, Bond finally met the monster that gave both Mallory and Psych nightmares.

“Well,” Q said, sounding normal, even if his eyes were still scary dark and shark-like. “The rumors do not do you justice, 007. That was lovely, thank you.”

“I assume we had an audience?”

“Fausto Murgia. Terribly paranoid about men around his girlfriend, and needed a bit of evidence to prove that I wasn’t out to seduce her. Seducing the men around him wasn’t even an option. Bunch of knuckle-dragging Neanderthals.”

Bond relaxed against the wall.

Some of the tension bled out of Q, as well.

“Q. Did you call me all the way from London for a snog and a pretend bout of trashy sex in a club for the benefit of your mark?”

The answering grin was a little less homicidal and a little more like the Q who scrapped with Bond over the last piece of bacon on Sunday mornings.

“I did ask you for a laptop, too.”

“Which I doubt you actually need.”

“Not really, no. But it was absolutely worth it,” Q said.

Bond slowly pushed off his wall and approached Q. The other man’s dark green eyes were still a bit scary, but not for Bond. If being scary brought Q home to play with the cats and eat all the bacon and sprawl all over the sofa while binge-watching _Stranger Things_ , then Bond didn’t mind if he channeled Jack the Ripper.

He reached out slowly, telegraphing all his movements and giving Q ample time and warning to turn away. He undid a couple of Q’s shirt buttons, taking a moment to let his fingertips brush warm skin. “I don’t have any lipstick to smear, sorry darling. This will have to do,” he said. He considered various spots for a moment, aware of Q’s raised eyebrows, before just deciding to go for it.

It might be petty revenge for the love bites that Bond already felt blooming over his own skin, but Q smelled amazing and Bond didn’t feel the least bit guilty about sucking a bruise at the juncture between neck and shoulder. Public enough to be seen, but Q could hide it if he wanted or needed.

Q was quiet and still as a rattlesnake. Bond soothed the sting of the bite with a small closed-mouth kiss and withdrew. Next Bond twisted fingers through Q’s thick dark hair, disarranging it until it looked like it did in the early mornings, before Q tried to tame it with brushing and product.

“There. You look as close to debauched as I can manage without the actual debauching.”

“Pity,” Q said, considerably gentled. “The debauching was looking pretty promising for a minute.”

“No offense, but I prefer classier locales. And a bit of wining and dining beforehand.”

“That’s what she said.”

Bond flicked Q’s nose. Q snapped his teeth at the fingers. Status quo, returned.

“I’m leaving in the morning. I’ll see you at home when you’re done playing with the local Italian mafia. Have fun, Q.”

“I will. Safe trip,” Q said. He ruffled up Bond’s hair since it had grown a little longer, untucked his shirt, and unbuckled Bond’s belt. Bond waggled his eyebrows at him and gave Q his most ridiculous _come hither_ look, which many women had told him made him look like a dork. Whatever that meant.

They both took a fortifying breath, grinned at each other, and stumbled back out into the club, wrapped around each other. The heavy music and the lights lanced through Bond’s head. Q swayed against him, laughing as if at a joke, and pressed a surprisingly sweet kiss to the corner of Bond’s mouth.

“Later, 007,” he said. Then his heat was gone from Bond’s side, as his geekiest of agents proudly strutted a walk of disheveled shame to the bar. Bond stared after the cute arse and the willowy back and ignored the audience watching Bond put his clothes back to rights.

Out on the street he hailed a cab and gave the address for the hotel.

There were times he wondered if he missed the field. The rush of blood, the adrenaline, the ability to look at a man and know that he was going to die at a time and place of your choosing. If he’d stayed in, he wondered if he’d have made it. As it was, the retirement age for surviving Letters was 45, and Bond was only a few years off that. He watched the city go by, idly daydreaming. If he’d stayed a Letter, would Q still be one as well? Or, by a twist of fate, would Q have gone into TSS and been the voice in Bond’s ear on missions? It wouldn’t be unimaginable. _He’d be good at it_ , Bond thought.

The cab passed the hotel.

Bond leaned forward. “Hey, you missed—”

The driver pointed a gun at his face.

 _Not this again_.

Bond activated the distress GPS chip Mallory had him outfitted with after his first kidnapping. Then he pulled both feet up and kicked the driver’s seat. The creaky thing gave, the driver’s face met the steering wheel, and by then Bond was on him like a pissed off wild boar. They fought for control of the car, the driver scrabbling at the wheel and Bond’s face while Bond had one hand on the wheel and the other hand he was bashing the driver’s head against the wheel and the window, alternatively.

The gun ended up on the floorboards somewhere, and damn, if Bond had a hand free he’d knife this arsehole with the switchblade Q had given him for Christmas.

Maybe he hadn’t left the Letter lifestyle as far behind as he thought, and he filed the thought away to look at later. The car crashed into a light pole, dislodging Bond from where he was vigorously strangling his would-be kidnapper and sending him flying into the windshield. Glass broke around him and he skittered across the hood. He had the presence of mind to scrabble away from the smoking car—too many things had blown up on him in his lifetime—and he ended up half hobbling-half running away from the scene of the crime before the cops showed up. The last thing he wanted to deal with was corrupt Florentine cops who may or may not be in Q’s mark’s pocket.

Bond was three blocks away when a dark sedan pulled up beside him. The driver, a gorgeous brunette with dark eyes and olive skin rolled down the window. “Kirk or Picard?” she asked.

“Original series, but Picard is the better captain by far.”

The brunette unlocked the door and Bond half-fell inside.

“I don’t know what any of that means,” she said, her Italian accent thick as she offered him a cigarette he turned down. “I preferred Star Wars. Original trilogy of course, not those shit prequels.”

“My kind of girl, but don’t let my flatmate hear you. He dueled a guy about the Star Trek/Star Wars debate once,” he said.

The woman snorted. “How does your flatmate feel about Babylon 5?”

“Surprisingly okay.”

“Then he’s not a complete waste of space.”

Bond giggled at the pun. With the adrenaline wearing off and relief that she’d taken him to the local field office setting in, he was starting to feel his body’s complaints.

“Philippa Gatti,” the woman said, once they were inside. “Stationmaster of the Florentine office.”

“Bond, James Bond,” he said, shaking her hand. “You were fast.”

“We’ve had eyes on you since you landed, Mr. Bond. It does not do to have such an asset go about unguarded.”

“In this instance, agreed. Thank you. I should call M.”

She indicated an empty office with a phone. “Yes. You call M. I will have someone fetch your things from your hotel. We have spare rooms here, and a doctor who makes house calls. Please do not leave without notifying us, and we will have you on a plane out first thing.”

Bond nodded and dialed.

“International Exports,” Moneypenny said.

“Miss. Moneypenny.”

The line clicked and fuzzed for a moment and then she was back. “Bond. Good. I’ll call off the hounds.”

“No major harm done,” Bond said.

“We’re looking into things on this end. Local police are on scene, and your kidnapper has been taken to the hospital. We’ll have someone on him the moment he wakes.”

Bond thought of Q’s shark-eyes. He had no doubt someone would be there. Whether or not the man would survive the encounter is another thing entirely.

“Are you all right, James?” she asked, a little quieter.

“Quite,” he said.

“You’re like catnip these days, Bond.”

“You’re telling me,” he said.

“We’ll call in the morning with any developments,” Moneypenny said.

 

Q_007_Q_007_Q

It took him a few days longer than he would have liked, but Q finished his job. With the missile plans and other incriminating data on a drive in his pocket and some spent clips of ammo, he was free from the Italian mafia.

Normally, he’d calmly check out of his hotel or simply head straight to the airport and leave the logistics to junior agents. This time, he had a little side-trip planned.

Sneaking into a hospital room was a novel experience. Q spent most of his time trying to break out of them.

Looking down at the man in the bed, the cold fanged thing in his soul purred. Bond hadn’t gone quietly. The man was still a mass of bruises, scratches, and second degree burns. Q looked at the man’s chart. Broken ribs, concussion, multiple lacerations, a bit of charring from just barely escaping the car explosion, and—here Q grinned a bit—evidence of throttling.

Q turned down the painkillers and leaned over the man’s bed, knife glinting in hand. With his free hand, he poured a cup of lukewarm water on the man’s face. It wasn’t water boarding, but found the dramatics satisfying anyway.

“Wakey wakey,” Q whispered cheerfully. “I have just a couple of questions for you. Answer me quickly and truthfully, I leave happy and this is the end. Play games, and…” the knife traced down the man’s throat, “you’ll find I don’t play nicely. Now, let’s start easy. Is Antonio Bernardino your real name? Oh, good that’s helpful.”

 

007_Q_007_Q_007

007 came home on a Friday to the smell of garlic and something cooking.

He kicked off his shoes by the door, tossed his keys and phone on the bar, and dropped his briefcase in his room before heading to the shower. He heard Q in the kitchen, singing along to the radio.

So, mission successful.

“I didn’t see you return your equipment,” he said when he finally made his way to the kitchen, barefoot, dressed down, his towel slung over one shoulder.

Q was in his own off-duty mode: a geeky t-shirt stretched out and washed soft, ripped jeans, socks with golden snitches on them, hair washed and left to dry in complete disarray. Bond still saw the remnants of the nearly-gone hickey he’d given Q a week prior.

Q stirred the pasta and turned his attention to tossing vegetables in a light alfredo sauce.

“Check the garlic bread, won’t you?” he asked. “I checked it in with 006. He looked particularly smug for some reason.”

“He always looks like that. It’s his version of bitch-face,” Bond said. He peered into the oven, seeing the bread in the sweet spot between golden and crunchy and burnt. “This is done.”

“Thank you.”

Q pulled the bread out, flicking the pieces into a basket and covering it with a towel before reaching into the fridge and grabbing the zinfandel he had chilling.

Bond poured it into a fresh glass for himself and topped off Q’s glass. Q subscribed to the Julia Child mode of thought: cooking was best done with a glass or three of wine to accompany it.

“I’m sure you’ve been briefed on my attempted kidnapping,” Bond said.

“Mm-hm,” Q hummed. “Mallory looked like he’d aged ten years.”

“Moneypenny called me catnip.”

“She’s not wrong. Someone wants you,” Q said. He drained the pasta, then added it to the sauce and plated it up. “It wasn’t Fausto Murgia. If it had been, we’d both have been burned for that one and he stayed clueless the entire time.”

“If it wasn’t him, then who?”

“Two options. Either we have a mole in the local office and you got lucky. For what it’s worth, I doubt that’s the case. Pippa runs a tight ship.”

“Pippa?”

“Philippa. She told me you met and have acceptable taste in science fiction.”

“Ah. Second option?”

“You already know it,” Q said. “Want to eat in here or in the living room with Netflix?”

“Let’s go see what number 11 is up to.”

“Excellent. The other option is Spectre. And it’s looking pretty good from my way of thinking.”

Bond took his plate and followed his agent to the overstuffed sofa. “So, is he still alive, then? The kidnapper?”

“No.” Q twirled fettuccini and half a cherry tomato around his fork. “Of course not. His failure meant that man was good as dead. Someone had already started poisoning him by time I got there. Arsenic, it looked like. No, what worries me is that instead of killing him quickly, they gave him enough to limp him through until I could see him.”

“Someone wanted you to question him.”

“Indeed. And there’s only one organization on our radar that invests in such dramatic fuckery. Anyone else would just take out the trash and be done with it. This took planning and a certain amount of bribing to get medical professionals to look the other way.”

They ate in silence. He knew that Q would already have updated their information for him. Bond felt tired. Constantly looking over his shoulder was exhausting. It was easier, living with a Letter. But any assignment could be Q’s last, and all his enemy needed was one lapse in concentration to swoop in.

Somewhere along the line, Q cleared their plates and they just watched Netflix. Bond mentally reemerged and couldn’t remember what happened in the episode they’d just watched.

Q clicked pause, and in one smooth motion, straddled Bond.

Once again, Bond had a lapful of his favorite agent, and no idea what was going on. There was no extra audience around to watch voyeuristically from the shadows (they both swept the house for bugs regularly).

“Well, what do you think?” Q asked, arms bracing either side of Bond’s head. Bond scarcely let himself hope that this was leading anywhere, but there was Q, smelling amazing and a delightfully warm weight against him.

“Q?”

“Netflix and chill is much classier than a dingy loo. And I have just wined and dined you a bit. Home-cooked meal and all that.”

Bond grinned. “Are you seducing me, Q?”

“Well, you promised everyone and their mother that you’d be a boy scout, apparently. Took me a while to figure out why all my flirting, sweaty sparring sessions, and all the damn wandering around half naked wasn’t working. I’ve spent months draping myself across our furniture suggestively.”

Bond huffed a laugh.

“It’s not funny. Nearly gave me a complex. I ended up having to ask Moneypenny if there was something wrong with me, and all she did was laugh at me until she cried.”

Now Bond was full-out laughing into Q’s sternum, his arms wrapping his agent up in case he should decide to stomp off in a huff. A lot of things were starting to make sense. Including all the sprawling across various pieces of furniture.

“To be fair, though, all the suggestive draping in the world is going to be ruined when you’re covered in cats. I chalked it up as one of your weird but endearing quirks.”

“Oh, my God.”

Bond stole a quick kiss. “Not God, but close enough.” He surged off the sofa effortlessly, Q still clinging to him.

“Show off,” Q said dusting the side Bond’s face with butterfly kisses, light and playful, content to let Bond carry him off to the bedroom. After all, he’d done most of the work with the seducing, the least Bond could do is sweep him off his feet. “Don’t run me into anything.”

“When have I ever?”

Bond dropped Q on the bed and followed him down, resulting in a tussle for dominance that was entirely too much fun. Q fought bloody dirty, pinching and tickling, and ended up on top.

“You know I will do whatever I can to keep you safe,” he said, leaning over Bond, hands on either side of Bond’s head.

“Same for you,” Bond said.

“Just so we’re clear.”

“Very.” Bond divested Q of his shirt and tossed it across the room. It landed on Jack, who’d come to see with the commotion was, and ended up fluffed with terror, claws scrabbling into the carpet as he booked it away from the shirt monster that had attacked him.

 


End file.
